The Indian Odyssey of Michael and Nix

The mela reaches its pinnacle today. Hordes of devotees have been walking past the ashram since 4am this morning to bathe at Sangam. Nix has bravely headed out to photograph. I’m about to have chai and poha (reminds me of Busta Rhymes’ Wooha song every time I hear that word), then I might pluck up the courage to walk beyond the safety of the ashram gates. There are a lot of people out there.... Sweet Jesus, it looks like the mela may just have come to me. I can see out my window that a bunch of Indians have appeared in the ashram courtyard and are shouting. Run away, run away.... Bar the doors and baton down the hatches. A couple of days back I saw Saddhus at an ashram further down the road putting up barbed wire fence to keep people out. I thought at the time that they may have been overreacting. I’m beginning to think differently now. I believe machine gun turrets may be in order.... So, I spent the morning helping Komal drum up business for his chai stall as the hordes walked past en-route to Sangam. Having a white person standing there brings much interest and top dollar ;) And a multitude of photo requests – they wanted me to pose (cheesily) with each and every person in their extended families. I told them it was ek so (100) rupees a photo and they quickly changed their minds. Ha, take some of your own medicine! I waived the fee for the ones who seemed nice ;) I sat for a good couple of hours observing the Indians walking by. They behaved very much like flowing water (ah so Mr Braithwaite) – they moved around all obstacles in their way without any complaint, irritation or aggression (unlike commuters in London rush hour for instance). A good lesson there for me, although I did enjoy observing the incessant river of devotees from the comfort of my chai stall river bank ;) I also took some time to paint a bright orange Bindi on Lucy the ashram dog to get into the spirit of things. She was very well behaved about it, and looked awesome when it was all done. Later on Nix and I headed towards the insanity of the bazaar. I’m not sure what we were thinking ;) The town is looking filthy now, as you can imagine with over 100,000 people walking the narrow streets dropping litter as they go. Eco-consciousness is a concept foreign to India. The walkways were filled with paan stains (betel nut chewing baccy mix that Indians love to spit all over the place), and the sweet smells of urine and poo wafted around us. I thought I had died and gone to pooey heaven. Despite this, everyone was happy and I found this to be most contagious - it helped me to retain a good humour through the heat, chaos and crowds. I was “hari om’ing” and “narmadehar’ing” my little heart out. Nix wants to go to the Mela again tonight to capture the busyness on camera. That means I’ll be going too, so am busy psyching myself up now. Bend like bamboo grasshopper. Wax on, wax off....